AT&T Mobility's (NYSE: T) Cricket prepaid brand is showing T-Mobile US (NYSE:TMUS) and its MetroPCS prepaid unit that two can play that game, and is offering T-Mobile and MetroPCS subscribers a $100 bill credit to switch over to Cricket.
The promotional offer comes a day after T-Mobile said it will give any customer on its Simple Choice plans unlimited LTE data for a year if they bring a new customer to T-Mobile. (For those Simple Choice customers who already have unlimited data, T-Mobile said it will give them a $10-per-month credit for a year.)
Cricket's offer is available from Aug. 24 to Oct. 19 at Cricket stores nationwide and online, and the company said there is no limit on the number of lines a customer can switch to Cricket, receiving a $100 bill credit for each line transferred.
However, there are several caveats to the offer. The credit is only available to T-Mobile and MetroPCS customers who port a number to Cricket and who purchase and activate a new line of service on a Basic, Smart or Pro rate plan. The credit will be issued to the customer's account around five days before the end of the initial service period and suspended or cancelled accounts are not eligible to receive the credits. Further, Cricket said lines added to multi-line accounts five or fewer days prior to the end of a billing cycle will receive the credits during the following month of service.
Cricket's three basic rate plans, which include taxes and fees, are:
- $40 per month Basic plan that offers 500 MB of high-speed data before throttling;
- $50 per month Smart plan that includes international texting and 2.5 GB of high-speed data before throttling; and
- $60 Pro plan that that offers international texting and 5 GB of high-speed data before throttling.
In addition, Cricket will drop the price of the monthly plans by $5 if customers select the autopay option. AT&T restricts the maximum download speeds available to its new Cricket prepaid customers to 8 Mbps on LTE devices and 4 Mbps on HSPA+ devices.
Cricket pointed out that AT&T's network has more LTE coverage than T-Mobile (around 290 million POPs compared to 235 million POPs for T-Mobile), and that it also offers customers who make 12 on-time payments in a year a $50 device credit, or reward, that can be used to upgrade to a new phone.
For more:
- see this Cricket release
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